The way the trees empty themselves of leaves, let drop their ponderous fruit, the way the turtle abandons the sun-warmed log, the way even the late-blooming aster succumbs to the power of frost—
this is not a new story. Still, on this morning, the hollowness of the season startles, filling the rooms of your house, filling the world with impossible light, improbable hope.
And so, what else can you do but let yourself be broken and emptied? What else is there but waiting in the autumn sun? ~Carolyn Locke “What Else?” from The Place We Become
So this is how life goes:
we are sowed, set down roots, bud and grow and flower and bloom and fruit and flourish,
then dry and change and wither and empty and break away to be carried off beyond this air and water and soil.
We thrive where we are planted, do what we could with a little nurture, then transcend the here and now.
So shall we plant the next generation in healthy soil. May we weed and water and feed as needed. May we never seek to overshadow the sun but step aside so its light fully shines on whoever comes next.
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And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response.
That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?” ~Mary Oliver“The Morning Poem”
It is impossible to stay a silent observer of the world when you awake still alive.
An autumn morning demands a response.
I would like to make a comment.
It isn’t only nature pulling what was once lush and young into the ground: we witness flying leaves and dropping temperatures giving way to brisk winds and chill rains.
Humankind, like the change in seasons, is skilled at dying: we face violence across borders, nurture hatred which blusters, rips, drenches, encompasses, buries.
Nothing can remain as it was.
Yet I awake, lit and alive, struck and wrung by vanishing darkness, a witness to the sun rising up to catch the moon.
Called to comment. Dying to respond.
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Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:
“Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn—and I would heal them.”
Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.
Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.
Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” John 12: 37-50
…glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.
The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God.
To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son— it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. ~C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory
Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise; Thou mine inheritance, now and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart, High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art. ~Eleanor Hull – 4th stanza of Be Thou My Vision
We all love praise, even vain empty praise which rings hollow in our ears. Even so, it feels as glorious as the transient golden light of October – gilded and alluring.
After all, the next step is withering and dying unto winter.
In our desire to be loved, too often we demand proof we have value, either by an impressive salary, or the number of “followers” we have on social media, our name placed on a building, or surrounding ourselves with people who tell us only what we want to hear.
Jesus is well aware that publicly acknowledging a belief in Him alone can come at great cost: it means turning away from the passing praise and admiration from others.
Instead, Christ came into the world to save us with His promise of glory — not for a temporary “feel-good” moment — but so we would forever truly understand the Father’s delight in us, His children.
Nothing can be more glorious than that.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote: “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.”
No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requires considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller. ~Flannery O’Connor from “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”
How close the clouds press this October first and the rain—a gray scarf across the sky. In separate hospitals my father and a dear friend lie waiting for their respective operations, hours on a table as surgeons crack their chests. They were so brave when I talked to them last as they spoke of the good times we would share in the future. To neither did I say how much I loved them, nor express the extent of my fear. Their bodies are delicate glass boxes at which the world begins to fling its stones. Is this the day their long cry will be released? How can I live in this place without them? But today is also my son’s birthday. He is eight and beginning his difficult march. To him the sky is welcoming, the road straight. Far from my house he will open his presents— a book, a Swiss army knife, some music. Where is his manual of instructions? Where is his map showing the dark places and how to escape them? ~Stephen Dobyns “No Map” from Velocities:New and Selected Poems
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. ~G.K. Chesterton from Tremendous Trifles
No, this is not the end— hardly an end, but a hard beginning. There will always be a morning— a rebirth.
So, here in the dark— in a night bleaker than bleak— in a time outside of time— there is a mark on the Holy map of your soul where you found your Maker in the hard, dark night— and then lived to see the light of dawn. ~Kimberly Phinney from“An Ode to Hard, Dark Nights
May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
<Here there be dragons> was any place on the ancient maps that was unknown and unexplored, a place to avoid at all costs~ or for the daring and carefree, pointing to exactly the place to explore.
<Here there be dragons> marks the remainder of our days that dwell at the edge of life’s roadmap ~ scary, unpredictable, impenetrable ~ and often full of peril.
So many are lost without a map, unable to find their way in the dark, wrecked and wandering, weeping and wretched, believing they have come to the end.
Yet this is not the end, only the beginning. A hard start – all rebirths are hard.
As I have been shown mercy, so I must become mercy, be loving where others show hate, be giving when others take away, build up while others tear down.
We walk together into the emerging light – it’s right there where darkness used to dwell… following God’s holy map of our soul.
On a rusty iron throne Past the furthest star of space I saw Satan sit alone, Old and haggard was his face; For his work was done and he Rested in eternity.
And to him from out the sun Came his father and his friend Saying, now the work is done Enmity is at an end: And he guided Satan to Paradises that he knew.
Gabriel without a frown, Uriel without a spear, Raphael came singing down Welcoming their ancient peer, And they seated him beside One who had been crucified. ~James Stephens “The Fullness of Time”
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At times these days I think of the way the sun would set on the farmland around our small house in the autumn.
A view of the horizon, the entire circle of it, if you turned, the sun setting behind you, the sky in front becoming pink and soft, then slightly blue again, as though it could not stop going on in its beauty, then the land closest to the setting sun would get dark, almost black against the orange line of the horizon, but if you turn around, the land is still available to the eye with such softness, the few trees, the quiet fields of cover crops already turned, and the sky lingering, lingering, then finally dark.
As though the soul can be quiet for those moments. All life amazes me. ~Elizabeth Strout, from My Name is Lucy Barton
I have learned, from those much wiser than I am, to recognize moments meant for quieting.
The news of the world constantly rushes past; there is suffering beyond imagining in the lives of a few I know well and for millions I don’t know at all.
What little can I do to make a difference? So much need lies beyond my short reach.
Instead of feeling abandoned on the shores of overwhelm, I seek out the familiar, the routine, and the ordinary, lingering immersed in the recurring patterns of the day and night as the world keeps on spinning on its axis.
I too turn around to witness that which surrounds me, and in so doing, my soul is quieted. And amazed.
One year ago, my teacher and mentor Jane Goodall passed into eternity, leaving behind this message for us all…
Fifteen years ago today, family and friends lost Jenny Rausch to eternity. She is someone we will never forget and I want to share a bit about what she taught me, but also direct you to a page of her wit and wisdom — some wonderful horse stories she had written over the years.
I spent this morning adjusting to this change in season by occupying myself with the familiar task of moving manure. Cleaning barn is a comforting chore, allowing me to transform tangible benefit from something objectionable and just plain stinky to the nurturing fertilizer of the future. It feels like I’ve actually accomplished something.
As I scooped and pushed the wheelbarrow, I remembered another barn cleaning over two decades ago, when I was one of three or four friends left cleaning over ninety stalls after a Haflinger horse event that I had organized at our local fairgrounds. Some people had brought their horses from over 1000 miles away to participate for several days. Whenever horse people gather, there were inevitable personality clashes and harsh words among some participants along with criticism directed at me that I had taken very personally.
As I struggled with the umpteenth wheelbarrow load of manure, tears stung my eyes and my heart. I was miserable with regrets over people not getting along. My work did not feel worth the pain I was feeling.
My friend Jenny Rausch had stayed behind with her family to help clean up the large facility and she could see I was struggling to keep my composure. Jenny put herself right in front of my wheelbarrow and looked me in the eye, insisting I stop for a moment and listen.
“You know, none of these troubles and conflicts will amount to a hill of beans years from now. People will remember a fun event in a beautiful part of the country, a wonderful time with their horses, their friends and family, and they’ll be all nostalgic about it, not giving a thought to the infighting or the sour attitudes or who said what to whom.
So don’t make this about you and whether you did or didn’t make everyone happy. You loved us all enough to make it possible to meet here and the rest was up to us. So quit being upset about what you can’t change. There’s too much you can still do for us.”
And then she gave me a hug that I will always cherish.
During tough times which have come often in my professional life, including the difficult and controversial decisions I had to make during the COVID pandemic, Jenny’s advice replays in my mind, reminding me to stop seeking appreciation from others, or feeling hurt when harsh words come my way.
None of these things amount to a hill of beans now…
She was right about the balm found in the tincture of time. She was right about giving up being upset in order to die to myself and my self-absorption, to keep focusing outward rather than inward.
Jenny, I have remembered what you said even though at times I relapse and forget.
A few years after that day in the barn, Jenny herself spent six years vigorously living her life every day while treating a relentless cancer. The tumor spread was initially slowed in the face of her faith and intense drive to live. Over time though, she became a rusting leaf, fading imperceptibly, crumbling at the edges until she finally let go.
Her dying on this day twelve years ago did not flash brilliance, nor draw attention at the end. Her intense focus during the years of her illness had always been outward to others, to her family and friends, to the numerous healers she spent so much time with in medical offices, to her belief in the plan God had written for her and others.
Despite her intense love for her husband and young children, she let go her hold on life here. And we all had to let her go.
Brilliance cloaks you as your focus is now on things eternal.
You were so right, Jenny. Conflicts from twenty-five years ago surely haven’t amounted to a hill of beans; all is remembered fondly by those who were part of the gathering. I especially treasure the words you wisely spoke to me as they have helped me through other tough times when I tend to focus on nurturing my own hurt feelings.
Bathing in the hurt never helps…
And I’m no longer upset that I can’t change the fact that you have left us. There is still so much you continue to do for us by staying alive in our memories. We won’t forget what you have said and written.
And so it goes… I know we’ll catch up later.
Jenny R –photo by Ginger Kathleen Coombs
…to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again. — Ellen Bass “The Thing Is…” from Mules of Love
Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour; And eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet give you a Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! – These things, these things were here and but the beholder Wanting; which two when they once meet, The heart rears wings bold and bolder And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Hurrahing in Harvest”
This poem is (in Hopkin’s own words) “the outcome of half an hour of extreme enthusiasm as I walked home alone one day from fishing in the [River] Elwy.”
This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world. ~Amy Lowell from “September 1918”
There is no point in seeing without responding; there is no way to respond without seeing.
Christian life and practice require both faith (the sight of the heart) and works (the lurch of the heart toward him in obedience). ~Kathleen Mulhern from “A Christ Sighting” from Dry Bones
Am I the only one who awoke this morning praying today might be a day of healing between peoples, when the barbarous becomes beautiful and we seek to become balanced rather than broken?
A day of no drone missiles being launched, no threats of annihilation and winner takes all, no one gunned down in the street, no vehicles used as weapons, no harsh and angry words spoken, no child misused, no one sold into slavery, no one overdosing, abandoned, homeless and starving.
Am I the only one who awakes and only seeks to watch the clouds to praise the heavens to see the leaves turn color to take out this one day and taste it and find that it is good, then put it away for self-keeping to share when and if I find someone else as hungry for grace and mercy as I am,
so as to balance myself somehow in the beauty of this world while teetering on its brokenness?
She lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a glorious infestation! How few wizards realize just how much we can learn from the wise little gnomes- or, to give them their correct names, the Gernumbli gardensi. ‘Ours do know a lot of excellent swear words,’ said Ron… J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
It is hard to say exactly when the first one moved in. This farm was distinctly gnome-less when we bought it nearly forty years ago, largely due to twenty-seven hungry barn cats residing here at the time in various stages of pregnancy, growth, development and aging. It took awhile for the feline numbers to whittle down to an equilibrium that matched the rodent population.
In the mean time, our horse numbers increased from three to seven to over fifteen with a resultant exponential increase in barn chores. One spring thirty years ago, I was surprised to walk in the barn one morning to find numerous complex knots tied in the Haflingers’ manes. Puzzling as I took precious time to undo them, literally adding hours to my chores, I knew I needed to find the cause or culprit.
It took some research to determine the probable origin of these tight tangles. Based on everything I researched, they appeared to be the work of Gernumbli faenilesi, a usually transient species of gnome preferring to live in barns and haylofts in close proximity to heavy maned ponies. In this case, as the tangles persisted for months, they clearly had moved in, lock, stock and barrel. The complicated knots were their signature pride and joy, their artistic way of showing their devotion to a happy farm.
All well and good, but the extra work was killing my fingers and thinning my horses’ hair. I plotted ways to get them to cease and desist.
I set live traps of cheese and peanut butter cracker sandwiches, hoping to lure them into cages for a “catch and release”. Hoping to drive them away, I played polka music on the radio in the barn at night. Hoping to be preemptive, I braided the manes up to be less tempting but even those got twisted and jumbled. Just as I was becoming ever more desperate and about to round up more feral cats, the tangling stopped.
It appeared the gnomes had moved on to a more hospitable habitat. Apparently I had succeeded in my gnome eradication plan.
Or so I thought.
Not long after, I had the distinct feeling of being watched as I walked past some rose bushes in the yard. I stopped to take a look, expecting to spy the shining eyes of one of the pesky raccoons that frequents our yard to steal from the cats’ food dish. Instead, beneath the thorny foliage, I saw two round blue eyes peering at me serenely. This little gal was not at all intimidated by me, and made no move to escape. She was an ideal example of Gernumbli gardensi, a garden gnome known for their ability to keep varmints and vermin away from plants and flowers. They also happen to actively feud with Gernumbli Faenilesi so that explained the sudden disappearance of my little knot-tying pests in the barn.
It wasn’t long before more Gardensi moved in, a gnomey infestation. They tend to arrive in pairs and bunches, bringing their turtles and dogs with them, like to play music, smoke pipes, play on a teeter totter, work with garden tools, take naps on sun-warmed rocks and one even prefers a swing, day and night through all four seasons. They are a bit of a rowdy bunch and always up for a party, but I enjoy their happy presence and jovial demeanor. I haven’t yet heard any bad language as we have a “keep it clean” policy about bad words around here. They seem quite hardy, stoically withstand extremes in weather, wear masks when asked and only seem fearful when hornets build a nest right in their lap.
As long as they continue to coexist peaceably with us and each other, keep the varmints and their knot-tying cousins away, and avoid bad habits and swear words, I’m quite happy they are here. Actually, I’ve given them the run of the place. I’ve been told to be cautious as there are now news reports of an even more invasive species of gnome, Gernumbli kitschsi, that could move in and take over if I’m not careful. In fact, several new little fellows moved into my hanging baskets and back into the barn this week – someone obviously had put the word out this is a great place to winter over. Now I need to watch for more mane tangles again.
A gnome explosion.
I shudder to think. There goes the neighborhood.
photo by Tomomi Gibson
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God empties himself into the earth like a cloud. God takes the substance, contours of a man, and keeps them, dying, rising, walking, and still walking wherever there is motion. Annie Dillard from “Feast Days” in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel
Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
What does it feel like to be alive? Living, you stand under a waterfall… It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation’s short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.
I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world’s surface, and exit through it. ~Annie Dillard from An American Childhood
What I have been after all along is not an explanation but a picture. This is the way the world is, altar and cup, lit by the fire from a star that has only begun to die. My rage and shock at the pain and death of individuals of my kind is the old, old mystery, as old as man but forever fresh, and completely unanswerable. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I came here to study hard things – rock mountain and salt sea – and to temper my spirit on their edges.
“Teach me thy ways, O Lord” is, like all prayers, a rash one, and one I cannot but recommend.
The Cascade Range, in these high latitudes, backs almost into the water. There is only a narrow strip, an afterthought of foothills and farms sixty miles wide, between the snowy mountains and the sea. These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan, the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world….
That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to see plain, makes them, as Chesterton said of the Eucharist, only the more mysterious by their very visibility and absence of secrecy. ~Annie Dillard from Holy the Firm
Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can’t learn why. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
The shadow’s the thing. If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,”as do the newly sighted, then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light. They give the light distance;they put it in its place. They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel, here in the world’s flawed sculpture, here in the flickering shade of the nothingness between me and the light. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house. ~Annie Dillard from The Meaning of Life (1991 Life Magazine)
But time is one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees. … You don’t run down the present… You wait for it, empty-handed, and you are filled. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
An infant is a pucker of the earth’s thin skin; so are we. We arise like budding yeasts and break off; we forget our beginnings. A mammal swells and circles and lays him down. You and I have finished swelling; our circling periods are playing out, but we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do know. ~Annie Dillard from For the Time Being
The world is wilder in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain or Lazarus. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?
Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?
Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?
What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and which reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?
Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love?
Annie Dillard passed into glory yesterday at age 81, finally witnessing firsthand the holy and sacred mysteries she pondered in her writings.
Since 1974,I have been indebted to her God-given gifts of observation and unique ability to share precisely perfect words to describe how she felt about what she saw. In 1976, she did a reading locally – I was amazed at herinsistence that we all have the power to open our eyes to this place we have been set down, to witness all that is secret, holy and fleet in our existence…
She indeed left her mark while living, teaching and writing here in Whatcom County for a time nearly fifty years ago…
All the photos on this page are from my collection of pictures I’ve taken here in Whatcom County, as I can imagine this scenery inspired Annie in her writing while she was here.
We are invited by Christ Himself to “come and see.” (John 1:39)
We weren’t conceived by random happenstance –
We are here because we were earnestly needed and wanted, by a power and divinity with a capacity for love and compassion beyond anything we are capable of.
We aren’t a cosmic joke, or random couplings of DNA. We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.
We have the capacity to see the image of God in one another, as well as in the mirror, yet we ignore with our own eyes, His shimmering reflection.
…beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there… ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
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The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.
So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” John 12: 12-19
On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave. I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward. ~Mary Oliver “The Poet thinks about the donkey” from her book Thirst.
As the Book of John now enters the week of Jesus’ passion, we learn of palms and a donkey.
Palm Sunday is a day of dissonance and dichotomy in the church year, very much like the donkey who figured as a central character that day.
Sadly, a donkey gets no respect, then or now – for his plain and awkward hairy looks, for his loud and inharmonious voice, for his apparent lack of strength — yet he was the chosen mode of transportation for an unlikely King riding to His death.
There was a motley parade to Jerusalem: cloaks and palms at the feet of the donkey bearing the Son of God, disorderly shouts of adoration and blessings, the rebuke of the Pharisees to quiet the people.
Jesus’ response was “even the stones will cry out” about what is to come.
But the welcoming crowd waving palm branches, shouting sweet hosannas and laying down their cloaks did not understand the fierce transformation to come, did not know within days they would be a mob shouting words of derision and rejection and condemnation.
The donkey knew because he had been derided, rejected and condemned himself, yet still kept serving. Just as he was given voice and understanding centuries before to protect Balaam from going the wrong way, he could have opened his mouth to tell them, suffering beatings for his effort.
Instead, just as he bore the unborn Jesus to Bethlehem, stood over Him sleeping in the manger, bore a mother and child all the way to Egypt to hide from Herod, the donkey keeps his secret well.
Who, after all, would ever listen to a mere donkey?
Even so, we would do well to pay attention to this braying wisdom.
The donkey knows – he’s a believer.
He bears the burden we have shirked. He treads with heavy heart over the palms and cloaks we lay down as meaningless symbols of honor. He is the ultimate servant to the Servant who laid aside His crown.
A day of dichotomy — of honor and glory laid underfoot only to be stepped on, of blessings and praise turning to curses, of the beginning of the end becoming a new beginning for us all.
And so Jesus wept, knowing all this. I suspect the donkey bearing Him wept as well, in his own simple, plain, and honest way, and I’m quite sure he kept it as his special secret.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
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